In agriculture, IoT is primarily used for field parameter monitoring and automation, with the goal of assisting farmers in increasing crop productivity. Long-range and low-power devices, ease of installation, and cost-efficiency are the primary factors to consider when deploying a real-time IoT network.
The ultimate goal of our research is to collect, monitor and effectively employ relevant data for agricultural processes, with the purpose of achieving an optimized and more environmentally sustainable agriculture.
We have selected LoRa for this research as the communication interface to monitor factors such as pH, EC (Electrical Conductivity), temperature, and many others in underground soil that affect plant growth. We can determine the most appropriate periods for sowing and harvesting by monitoring the factors in soil at various sites across a farm, or detect temperature changes and adjust ventilation and irrigation.
LoRa’s properties, such as lower cost, wider range, high penetrating power, and ultra-low power consumption with a maximum data transfer rate of 300kbps, proved to be ideal and met our requirement of monitoring the factors in an underground system.
Furthermore, LoRa is a wireless technology for M2M and IoT applications that provides secure data transmission. Sensors, gateways, machines, gadgets, animals, people, and other objects can all be wirelessly connected to the cloud using LoRa.
LoRa devices have hundreds of use cases for agriculture, smart cities, homes and buildings, communities, metering, supply chain and logistics, and other applications. When compared to other existing technologies, LoRa technologies are becoming more affordable and adaptable. In addition, the quality of materials and internal components has been reduced in order to reduce expenses.
The widely used short-range radio technologies (e.g., ZigBee, Bluetooth) are not adapted for scenarios that require long-range transmission. Solutions based on cellular communications (e.g., 2G, 3G, and 4G) can provide larger coverage, but they consume excessive device energy. Therefore, IoT applications’ requirements have driven the emergence of new wireless communication technology: low power wide area network (LPWAN).Sigfox, LoRa, and NB-IoT are the three leading LPWAN technologies that compete for large-scale IoT deployment.
LoRa wireless technology will undoubtedly play a significant role in the IoT sector. Interconnecting devices to develop solutions for agriculture,smart cities, industrial, and commercial solutions while overcoming the limits of conventional wireless technologies, such as power and other costs. Discover Senzmate's agriculture product with advanced soil sensors, smart irrigation systems and agricultural analytics based on cloud technology.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is LORA technology?
LoRa (Long-Range) is a wireless solution designed for long distance data transmission and low power communication. It is used to connect various IoT devices to the internet.
How Senzmate use LoRa technology in agriculture?
LoRa devices are used in the agriculture sector to transmit data from the device on the farm to the cloud to monitor factors affecting crop yields such as soil moisture, pH value, temperature and electrical conductivity and weather monitoring, to detect early signs of crop disease, to monitor air and water quality. Senzmate designed the LoRa device to be used underground to study factors that affect crop growth, such as pH, electrical conductivity, temperature and humidity. By collecting the data available through this, the decision can be made based on the data about the timing of irrigation and the suitable timing for sowing and harvesting of seeds.
Written by Hansi Rathnayaka